A local resident forms a group that will address the causes and provide solutions to global warming at a local level.
By Melonie Magruder / Special to The Malibu Times
If, as in his Oscar-nominated documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” former Vice President Al Gore suggests that the solution to impending global warming is individual action, he has found a lieutenant in Malibu resident Brigitte Perrault-Wolf.
Perrault-Wolf has created a forum for raising awareness of and providing solutions to global warming on a local level through the Malibu Global Warming Meet Up group. Her aim is to energize people at a local level to make individual efforts at change, whether through adopting “green” practices or finding a constituency to lobby elected officials on state and federal levels to legislate change.
“We need to raise awareness on this issue,” Perrault-Wolf said. “You start locally, then go statewide.”
The group’s first official meeting will take place Saturday at the Sunset Restaurant on Westward Beach, and Perrault-Wolf said there is no fee to join.
“We first are going to explain exactly what global warming means, what is causing it and how it works. As time goes by, we will discuss solutions. Most people have no idea that, individually, we can make a difference. We don’t have to leave it to the government or to large corporations.”
Perrault-Wolf plans to have guest speakers with expertise on causes and solutions to global warming address the meet up group, including an interview with Nobel recipient in physics, Dr. Eric A. Cornell of the University of Colorado.
“I believe we are reaching a critical mass in awareness of this issue,” said Dr. Robert Weathers, a clinical psychologist who taught at Pepperdine University for 20 years and who will be addressing the group at its first gathering.
“If you look at a bell shaped curve that shows the number of people on earth who have a pluralistic world view, it sits at about 20 percent,” Weathers said. “These are the people who go beyond ethnocentrism and have an inclusive world vision. They are the 20 percent who will pull everyone else along on global warming. Together, we can make a formidable difference.”
Perrault-Wolf cited Gore’s continuing efforts to compel social awareness and promote action on a global level.
“Al Gore has organized a 24-hour, seven-continent music concert,” she said. “This will really raise awareness.”
The concert, billed “Live Earth,” will take place on July 7 and is patterned on Bob Geldof’s international “Live Aid” concert series, launched in the ’90s to address global poverty.
A native of Montreal, Perrault-Wolf initially studied international relations in school and worked with global corporations until she moved to Malibu 14 years ago.
“I wanted to be closer to the ocean,” she said.
Much of Perrault-Wolf’s time the last several years has been taken up with humanitarian causes, including efforts to help settle refugees from war-torn nations and ending poverty. But a dawning awareness of climate scientists’ warnings has directed her energies to global warming.
A recent trip to China convinced her that it was time to take personal action, sensing that world governments did not seem to be engaged in the need to eliminate carbon emissions, the major contributor, scientists say, to a global warming trend that threatens the world’s oceans and weather patterns.
“When I was in China, the coal burning plants were just terrible,” she said. “The air is so thick with these emissions that it takes away all color. Everything was grey!”
Perrault-Wolf returned to the U.S. determined to take action.
“This is our global legacy,” she said. “We have to do something now.”
For Perrault-Wolf, that meant raising awareness and she launched her campaign by producing a documentary titled “Why is the Sky Blue?” which offers commentary from scientists and laymen on systematic approaches to keeping the heavens azure.
Perrault-Wolf spoke of the transition corporate America is beginning to undergo with this issue.
“In the Fortune 1000 companies in America, we are finally seeing CEOs educate their shareholders about global warming and the vital need to change the business-as-usual approach to production,” she said, citing companies like Timberland, whose CEO has pledged to take the company carbon-neutral within this decade.
“When they become aware of the extent and threat of global warming, people want to help,” Perrault-Wolf said. “My Meet Up is a first step in personal responsibility for change. It starts with us.”
The meeting on Saturday takes place at 1 p.m. More information can be obtained by visiting the Web site, http://globalwarming.meetup.com/51/members/3682284